Strength of the Cabal
by Ortaga
Summary: The Exo hunter, Otis-14, and his trusted ally, Jaina, an Awoken Warlock, travel into the dreaded asteroid belt in hope of destroying a Cabal super weapon before in rains chaos on the rest of the solar system.
1. Chapter 1

The Tower, Earth

After the events in the Black Garden, Otis-14 walked to the balcony and looked over this last human city. Like most guardians he hated not having a defined goal. This endless skirmishing with the Cabal, Hive, Vex, Fallen, and Darkness just irritated him. he needed something to set his sights on and achieve. Of course he could go to the crucible and continue to hone his skills, but he didn't feel like fighting guardians without purpose even more than aliens. He ran his hands along the rifle the stranger had given him, being an EXO he had a large curiosity of mechanics and computers. "Little light," he said, "can you tell me what I'm holding?"

The Ghost materialized out of thin air, then cast a beam of blue light on the rifle, taking it out of Otis-14's hand. "It appears to be a pulse rifle, it shoots standard ammunition, but this is strange," the ghost took a long pause, "some parts of this shouldn't even exist yet". With that he gave the pulse rifle back to Otis-14.

"Shouldn't exist? Where in the hell did she get this thing?" asked Otis-14 as he slid the rifle on his back and stepped away from the railing he was leaning against.

The ghost appeared again to say, "I know I'm smart, but I simply don't have the answers to your questions. I feel like we will soon meet from our strange friend and learn more."

Otis-14 heard the splashing of boots in water approach him from the back, but the rhythm of these steps was something he could never forget. He turned around to Jaina, an Awoken Warlock. Seeing the way her purple hair fell on her face always made Otis-14 feel happy, or what he thought was happy. He never knew if he could actually feel emotion or not. When the EXO's were built it was said some of the more advance models could feel which made them so human like that if one were to have its face covered it would be hard to tell if it was human or not. "I heard what you did in the Black Garden. Did you actually kill a Vex god? What did it look like? Man I wish you could drink so we could go to a pub and you could tell me about your 'heroic' journey into the heart of the Vex," she said teasing him, though he actually did want to hear his story.

Otis-14 shrugged and said, "We can go to the pub, I just won't drink." He wished he could have put a smile with that sentence, but he was sure Jaina understood.

They went to the pub and after a couple hours of Otis-14 telling his story and Jaina laughing, teasing, or asking questions, Jaina took the last sip of her beer, licked her lips and said "Okay, that's all pretty crazy and I'm happy you're still alive and all that, but what I really wanted to talk about is something bigger. Bigger and badder than a Vex god!", a grin crept across her face. "When I was on mars I got into a Cabal base on my little ghosty hacked into their computer, where he found something those damn Cabals tried really hard to keep hidden." She leaned in closer, close enough that if Otis-14 could smell he'd be able to smell whatever sent she had, another thing he wished he could do. "Plans for a Cabal super weapon being built somewhere in the asteroid belt." By now she was really excited and talking a little louder than she should when telling someone a big secret.

"Oh really!", Otis-14 said as he stood up from his stool, "Before you go any further, I think I should take you home."

Jaina laughed, "If you weren't an EXO I'd think you'd be trying to get me in bed." She winked then stumbled off her stool. She always forgot how much alcohol affected her. Otis-14 thought it may have something to do with her being an Awoken, but the quib about sleeping with Jaina made Otis-14 long even more to be living, because he would never know the warmth of a woman's body against his own after sharing in the passion of making love to each other. If there ever was a woman he would do that with, it would be Jaina.

When they got to Jaina's apartment, she threw off he Warlock sash and revealed he perfect blue skinned arms underneath. Then she flopped onto her bed with a chuckle and said, "Those damn crazy Cabals are making a thing that shoots asteroids using the gravity of planets or something stupid like!" She laughed some more then her head hit her pillow and she was fast asleep. Otis-14 tucked her under her blanket, it was the one he found for her with howling wolf crest on it. He tucked her in and made his way to her couch, though he knew that she was completely safe with her ghost watching over her, he always felt the need to watch her when she had too much to drink.

He laid down on her couch and set himself for power down until seven in the morning, so he could get started on figuring out what Jaina was talking about. He didn't want to get started without her though, she always liked to be kept in the loop of any findings he made, so he would wait for her to get up before he got started hunting. He threw his hunter cloak on the floor, as was he thought to be a human thing to do before sleeping, then powered down.


	2. Chapter 2

Jaina's Apartment, Earth

Otis-14 powered on at seven in the morning, but soon realized that Jaina would not get up for some time more. He stood up, picked his cloak off the floor, then walked to the window and looked out over the city scape view that she had. After a while he heard Jaina stumble out of bed and walk into her living room. Her hair was a mess and she still had a very sleep-like look on her face. She walked over to the couch and fell into its cushions. "I feel like shit," she said rubbing her eyes.

Otis-14 sat next to her on the couch and rested his arm on the back and replied, "Maybe next time don't drink enough for the both of us."

Jaina chuckled, rubbed her eyes and said, "I need to get ready before we get started on this. My ghost will upload the files to my holo-table while I'm in the shower, so you can get a head start on things." With that Jaina go off the couch and went into the bathroom.

Otis-14 walked to the holo-table. It was the size of a regular dining table but the surface turned into a holo-screen that could project holograms around the room, this made it very easy to analyse data and plan out missions. Jaina's ghost hovered over the terminal and shot its blue light into it. A moment passed then the table filled the room with holograms of the asteroid belt, mechanical engineering, attack plans and vectors, and a new Cabal Warlord whose name was left out of the file.

Otis-14 had been studying the files for about an hour when Jaina finally walked out of her room, she was wearing simple gray pants, a light blue shirt and a white scarf, and yet in Otis-14's mind she still looked absolutely stunning. Her ghost followed her, somewhere, she would not tell him exactly, she found a new shell for her ghost so now it was a dark red. Otis-14 liked this, because before both their ghosts looked the exact same and he would always get them confused. "Morning Otie," Jaina said with a yawn. She was the only one to call him "Otie". He liked it, and he was she she liked it better than saying Otis-14 every time she wanted his attention. "Find anything in these files yet?"

"Well the fact that they have a nameless Warlord running this operation tells me that it's either super important, or a secret operation that even most of the Cabal don't know about," he said as he grabbed the floating file that listed the operations chain of command and sent it Jaina's way. "Also, I was thinking that because this is so close to the Reef, that maybe we should alert the Queen about this threat."

Jaina crossed her arms, "That bitch gets whatever she has coming." Otis-14 had forgotten that Jaina had once tried to appeal to Queen in hopes of saving another guardian, but the Queen refused and the guardian was used as a sacrifice to a Fallen god. Ever since then Jaina refuses to do any kindness for the Queen and the Awoken out in the Reef. "As a matter of fact I think we should just wait till the Cabal have this thing running and hope they shoot her out of the void first!" Jaina stepped back and turned around. She put her hands behind her head and took a deep breath, "No, but I won't set foot in that woman's court ever again." Otis-14 just hoped the favor the Queen would call him on for wouldn't have to involve Jaina, because he knew he couldn't make both of them happy at the same time.

Jaina's ghost appeared excitedly and said, "I found something! Because I was only able to a portion of the file about this space station, I feel as though we should find the rest of it. There is mention of a Cabal Centurion that is helping with the stations defenses and his ship is still stationed at Mars, so if we are lucky then we can get aboard and steel the rest of the file." Otis-14 and Jaina looked at each other and shrugged.

"A two person boarding party of a Cabal frigate, going after the one thing they are trying to a keep a very buried secret, and we don't have support of the Vanguard. I like those odds," laughed Otis-14.

"Well if you really knew the odds you wouldn't be laughing," said one of the ghosts. Otis-14 hated that they had extremely similar voices.

Jaina laughed and went into her room to get ready. When she was preparing for a fight she was always fast, she knew exactly where everything was and what she would need. She came out with her helmet under her arm and her hand on her hip, "We are taking my ship."


	3. Chapter 3

The Tower, Earth

Jaina and Otis-14 stepped off the lift onto the tower plaza. This was Otis-14's favorite place to be, he felt truly at home here with all the other guardians. He always remembered this place when he was spending weeks or even in the odd case months out in the wilds fighting off the darkness. There were many familiar faces here. His old friend Vince was talking with the Cryptarchs, Vince was the hunter who inspired Otis-14 to follow the path of the Bladedancer. He was just as much a mentor to him as Cayde-6. He found another friend, Bjorn a Sunsinger Warlock, who joined him on a high priority mission from the Speaker to scout a Fallen breeding ground on the boot of Italy. This was home to Otis-14, this is where he felt calm and safe. "So why did you want to take your ship to badly?" Otis-14 asked trying to break the lull in his conversation with Jaina.

"Otie, remember that mission that didn't officially happen, but if it did, I got selected by the Vanguard and the Speaker to go with a team, of Awoken guardians, to not exactly break into the prison of elders, to not steal a special Fallen, that never existed?"

"What?"

"Well to do that mission that never happened, Amanda Holliday and Dead Orbit's engineers took some scavenged hive tech and gave my ship a few special upgrades that I believe will help us a lot on this mission of ours. My favorite being the cloaking device." Jaina said with a little smile and jump. Jaina always got excited about going into space. She was unique in that she loved the void. Otis-14 was like any other hunter, he prefered solid ground, out in the wilds, alone, rifle in hand, and his ghost looking over his shoulder. "Also, it has missiles that can pass through enemy shields!"

"I really hope we won't have to fight our way to this station," said Otis-14's ghost. "I feel so useless in space combat." They make their way to the hangar bay where Jaina's ship was docked. From the outside it look like a modified, gunmetal gray, Phaeton class jumpship. It had larger exhaust manifolds, reflective one-way canopy, and rows of missiles under each of its wings. One look at it and anyone knew whoever was behind the controls meant business. "Well it looks badass!"

"I know, right? I named her Gloria, after my mother."

"You can remember the name of your mother?"

"Human and Awoken guardians can remember parts of their old lives. I looked up my family name and found my grandson, who fought in the battle that almost killed the traveler. There isn't much more than that I'm afraid, other than the strange dreams and nightmares that are more like memories than anything else." This left Otis-14 puzzled and longing to be alive even more. He wished he knew what he was in his past life, what he did, and why he was chosen to become a guardian. "Anyway, I think it's time we got on board!"

Their ghosts transferred them aboard the Gloria, Otis-14 took one look around the small cabin area and noticed four seats, a weapons locker, monitors for the ships "special" equipment, and what looked like a suicide lever. Otis-14 reached for, but Jania slapped his hand away, "Don't touch that! It will open up the cabin and vent us right into the void. None of us were to risk being captured by the enemy."

"That sounds pleasant."

Jaina scoffed then took her seat at the controls, Otis-14 made his way to the co-pilot seat. Otis-14 rarely worked with anyone other than Jaina, hunters had a way with working alone, but he only felt comfortable working in space with her by his side. "Otie, you know what I just realized? We can't jump too close to this Cabal ship or they will pick us up on their radar."

"Well then, what do you think we should do?" The ship rumbled as it broke through Earth's atmosphere.

"We could jump in just out of range of their high sensitivity radar, then cloak up and glide in with one of their patrols." Otis-14 just nodded in agreement. He just wanted to be on that ship as fast as possible. "Sparky, put in the coordinates then get ready for a jump!". Jaina's ghost appeared, shot a blue light into the control panel, the disappeared just as quickly. Jaina pushed the throttles all the way forward. The view outside turned into a purple blur, then a few minutes later they were back in the void, and in the distance was the silhouette of a massive Cabal cruiser.


	4. Chapter 4

Cabal battle group, onboard the Gloria

The Gloria sat in space just outside of the Cabal's high sensitivity radars, cloaked and waiting for a passing patrol to fly amongst. Otis-14 leaned back in his seat and put his hands behind his head, "Well, I guess we are going to have to wait awhile, huh?" The battle group wasn't anything either him or Jaina had expected it to be. It consisted of a heavy cruiser, four destroyers, and twenty frigates, along with hundreds of short range fighters. Cabal were not known for their aces, but neither Jaina or Otis-14 wanted to alert and entire Cabal battle group of their presence. "I think we skipped a step here, we jumped in without getting the rest of the file on Cabal station."

Jaina was about to speak when a Cabal patrol started to pass by close enough for them to fly amongst. "Are you willing going in with not a lot of intel?"

"Were you even going to care if I said no?" Otis-14 said as Jaina throttled up the Glorias engines and they glided into a tight formation with the Cabal patrol. "We will probably never get another shot at this anyway." One thing Otis-14 was glad about, soon enough they would be out of this cramped ship and fighting their way through endless Cabal, in hopes of destroying a battle station that could do an unknown amount of damage to an unknown type of target, using an unknown method of doing so. Upon realizing all of the unknowns, Otis-14 really wished they had gone back for the rest of the file.

They followed the patrol around the battle group for several minutes, being careful not to bump any of them or ping their radars. Finally the patrol turned to one of the frigates. "Well this isn't where we are supposed to be going," Otis-14 said as he sat up in his chair. His ghost appeared over his shoulder. "What are you thinking about little light?"

The ghost hovered there for a moment then disappeared. Gloria's system automatically scanned the Cabal frigate then filled the view screens with hundreds of redacted documents about the frigate. "That ship ahead of us is special. Guardians have been tracking it down for decades. About sixty years ago the Cabal launched an assault on a guardian tower in the pacific northwest region of North America. Completely obliterating the tower, all the guardians and the surrounding population. The amount of guardians in the universe was cuts almost in half, leaving the Tower as the last beacon of hope for humanity. That invasion force came from this frigate. Teams of guardians went after the frigate, all were lost. The last team to attempt this left the tower about ten years ago after acquiring some information about the frigate. They were Hammer Team. The last we heard from them is a broken messaged from Hammer Team's explosive expert was his scream as he fled the frigate in his starship and was shot down."

Silence filled the cockpit of Gloria. Both Ortis-14 and Jaina just stared at the ship that they were now so close to the could not avoid being spotted if they left their patrol. Jaina readjusted in her seat and said, "Well, I know we came to knock out the Cabal Super weapon, but do you want to get some sweet vengeance on these bastards first?"

Otis-14 look at the frigate, then to Jaina, " We came here to kill the biggest and baddest of these space turtles, what's this little one got against us?". Jaina laughed and pulled the ship into the hangar with the rest of the patrol. They followed the patrol to docking then broke off to discreetly land their ship. They found an area that looks like it was to be used to repair damaged Cabal fighters, but with the lack of space combat they area was relatively abandoned. The lights were off in the repair area so they turned off the ship's cloaking device and landed. Otis-14 and Jaina made their way down the ramp into the Cabal hangar facility.

Jaina took point as Otis-14 stayed back. In most combat situations, Oitis-14 used a hand cannon or a pulse-rifle, but going into the cramped confinements of a Cabal frigate, he went with his shotgun instead. Jaina pulled out her arc fusion rifle and made her way to a set of doors that lead out of the hangar. This is what Otis-14 liked. Boots on the ground, hunting for some target, he does not even know the name of yet, without the Vanguard even knowing, all for the greater good of humanity. "Jaina, what are going after here? I'm totally fine with killing hordes of Cabal, but what's our end-game?"

"I say we make our way to the bridge, I know it will be heavily guarded, but if we can get it and take down the captain and his officers, we will get the vengeance we are looking for, after that we can see if we can gain control of any of their weapons systems on board this thing and take out the cruiser that was our original goal."

"We are going to destroy the cruiser? I thought were going to board that to steal information."

"If we cut the head off the operation running the Cabal super weapon, we will cripple it, at least long enough for us to gather more information and alert the Vanguard of its existence. If we are lucky is may shut down the whole operation for a time."

Jaina's ghost appeared, "Even if we take down the Cabal cruiser we are running a huge risk as to if another Cabal officer will take leadership of the operation, though your logic is sound as to delaying it long enough to gather more solid information and informing the Vanguard.

They rounded a corner to see two Cabal walking down the corridor away from them. Jaina stepped to the side as Otis-14 gracefully drew his arc blade, sprinted up behind the Cabal and slit one's throat. As the other turned after watching his comrades blood paint the walls, floor, and ceiling, Otis-14 teleported to its shoulders and plunged his arc blade into its neck as well. Both bodies fell to the floor with hardly a sound. Lucky considering how large Cabal are. Jaina walked up to Otis-14 stepping over the massive bodies and continued down the hall. Their operation needed to be as stealthy as possible for as long as possible. As soon as any alarm is triggered all Cabal will be on high alert until both their bodies were ripped apart from long torture sessions and intense questioning.

Before rounding the next corner Otis cloaked and teleported to find a patrol doing security exercises. He quickly jumped into an open door and found himself in the ship's brig. Upon realizing that he was alone here he uncloaked and whispered into his com, "Jaina you've got a patrol heading your way. You need to hide now." Otis-14 waited in silence for a reply. There was none. Instead of standing wait to know if Jaina found a hiding spot Otis-14 began searching the cells for prisoners. All were empty except for one.

Slumped in the corner of the cell was a hulking man. He looked at though he had been tired for years, his eyes sullen and lacking soul. When he finally focused on Otis-14 he just waved his hand motioning Otis to come closer. the man tried to speak, but a gravelly croak was all that escaped him. The man tried again, this time getting out, "Up, left, down, down, right." then coughing hoarsely. Ortis-14 stood there confused.

Little light materialised next to Otis-14, "I think he means the code to his cell." The ghost floated about the room until he came to a terminal. He shot his blue light at the terminal, entering the code the man said. The shield that was holding in the man disappeared.

Otis-14 stepped into the cell, "What's your name?" he said as he lowered himself to his level. His ghost floated back to him to watch patiently.

The man coughed, then tried to speak but coughed again. Finally he was to say, "Silent… alarm…" As soon as Otis-14 processed what the man had just said, the doors to the brig bursted open as six cabal Legionnaires, six Phalanx, and two Champions stormed in. The whole brig was filled with hot bullets flying through the air in an instant. Otis-14 stepped into the cell, pumped his shotgun, and cleared his mind.


End file.
